YORK, Maine — Money was tight back in 1934, especially for Christmas presents. So when Rheta Hughes' father waged a friendly challenge with his eight-year-old daughter over a Christmas present, he was sure there was no way his daughter would come out on top.

“But with my personality when I decide to do something I'm going to do it,” Hughes explained from her home in York on Thursday. “And, I ended up getting my present on Christmas morning.”

Hughes was referred to a pair of hockey skates, a present she had told her father she wanted just a few weeks before Christmas.

“So, my father told me that if I learned how to skate by Christmas, maybe Santa would bring me a pair,” Hughes said. “He was thinking that I would never be able to learn to skate, especially without having any skates of my own.”

But Hughes, determined to get her Christmas present, decided to borrow her older brother's skates to teach herself.

“I was eight and he was 13,” she said. “So, his skates were much, much bigger. They were so big I would keep my boots on and just slide ride into them.”

Hughes got right to work teaching herself to skate.

Growing up in Houlton, Maine — a small town right on the Canadian border — Hughes said people would often skate everywhere because there was ice all over the place.

“You could skate on the streets,” she said. “And, soon I was keeping up with my brother's friends.”

Come Christmas morning, the eight-year-old had taught herself to skate — to the shock of her father.

“Santa Claus ended up bringing me my present that morning,” she said with a laugh. “I was surprised to see them, and my father was even more surprised than I was.”